Congressman Bilbray's daughter at center of medical marijuana debate

Briana Bilbray’s fight with cancer leads to a different stance from her father’s

Briana Bilbray is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego that seeks an immediate halt to the federal government’s statewide efforts to shutter profit-making medical marijuana collectives.
— Howard Lipin

Briana Bilbray is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego that seeks an immediate halt to the federal government’s statewide efforts to shutter profit-making medical marijuana collectives.
— Howard Lipin

The young cancer survivor surged with adrenaline as she stepped up to the lectern at Imperial Beach City Hall to defend medical marijuana dispensaries and extol the drug’s therapeutic benefits for chemotherapy patients.

Briana Bilbray did not inform her father, who opposes medical marijuana, that she planned to speak out that night in July. The 25-year-old daughter of Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray told city officials that nausea and fatigue were “really pretty words” to describe such incapacitating conditions.

“You feel like you just want to die,” she said through tears in the city that launched her father’s political career. “I didn’t even want to breathe, I was so tired.”

Briana couldn’t persuade the City Council not to enact a ban on dispensaries, but she managed to shatter stereotypes on her way to becoming a torchbearer for the cause.

She is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego that seeks an immediate halt to the federal government’s efforts to shutter profit-making collectives statewide. As one of four challenges filed in each of the federal judicial districts in California, the legal action could settle the debate over California’s right to regulate production and distribution of medical marijuana.

California voters approved the drug for medicinal use in 1996, but it remains illegal under federal law.

Briana’s cancer has been in remission since late August and has a roughly 40 percent chance of recurrence. A political accountant who is active in her father’s campaigns, she worries about the prospect of patients no longer being able to find relief from doctor-recommended cannabis.

“It was always in my head that, given the opportunity, I would do what I could to make a difference,” she said. “There’s such a negative image cemented in everyone’s brain about marijuana, and that needs to go away because chemo patients are ultimately paying the price.”

The elder Bilbray does not support dispensaries operating in local communities and opposes congressional efforts to reclassify marijuana for medical use. He remains interested in the drug’s potential medicinal value and supports further federal study — as he was 15 years ago in Congress.

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“If this is really the benefit that Briana believes, we should be able to scientifically prove it and make it available not just in California, but the rest of the country as well. But it should be based on science not on political pressure or slogans,” Brian Bilbray said.

“Not in a million years would I have dreamed that my little girl would be in this position.”

He reiterated that his stance “was the right position then, and I think it’s the right position now.”

The congressman and numerous law-enforcement officials want to keep enforcing the federal law, saying a growing number of people have exploited California’s program as a cover for recreational use and illegal sales.

Public, private lives

In January, Briana made a doctor’s appointment to examine a mole that “had gotten really bad.” At 24, she was diagnosed with Stage III melanoma, the least common and most serious type of skin cancer, according to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.